House of Cards
by Shadow Stylus
Summary: Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed. [harsh HarryPeter, movieverse; complete]
1. A Toast to Friends

**Note to Readers:** This fanfic deals with rape and homosexuality. If you cannot handle one or both of those, please leave now.

**Second Note to Readers:** This is the first part of a trilogy, which is why the title on this page differs from the title you clicked on.

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**

A Toast to Friends

**  
_It's about getting what you wish you didn't want._  
by Alena  
July 4th, 2004 

_"To friends, Peter,"_ he faintly remembers Harry saying. If he'd been less thrilled about Harry's slow-but-sure forgiveness, if he'd been less trusting—but how could he have been?—of the person he'd known since he was a little kid, maybe he would have seen the darkness in Harry's eyes.

Maybe he would have seen Norman in Harry's eyes.__

_"To friends, Peter," _and a clink of shot glasses, they had drunk to something that was already all but gone before tonight, but felt as though it had been ripped away freshly and painfully.

Outside, Peter is silent. Inside, he's crying and screaming and begging, and wondering why Harry won't hear him.

And everywhere, there is pain.

---

Between the gasps and the groans, Harry manages to think a little, and then a lot, because even though what he's doing doesn't require much mental power, _why_ he's doing it _does_.

And the answer haunts him.

Because he _wants_ Peter, and he _wants_ to _destroy_ Spiderman, and he's having both, or maybe having neither, but whichever it is, in this second, it blew his soul.

---

Peter has heard stories about rape victims before. He's heard about how they leave their bodies, about how they run through simple things in their minds, like how they have a test tomorrow or how maybe they forgot to feed their goldfish. That was what they did, to take their minds away from the deep violation, the pain, the _helplessness_.

But Peter isn't the average person. Hasn't been for some time now.

And so he concentrates on the physical pain, because that hurt so much less.

---

Peter is slack and listless and quiet under him, eyes filled with a desperate kind of agony that Harry wants to wash away and intensify and ignore and he hates him, god he hates him and loves him and wants to protect him and save his soul and kill him and cause him all the pain in the world and Peter is driving him _insane_ because Harry doesn't know what he wants, he used to know, he _used to know_, he'd wanted Spiderman dead and Peter back with him, always with him and not loyal to Spiderman, but now everything makes sense and the sense tears everything apart and makes it crazy.

Makes _him_ crazy, and a hysterical laugh bubbles up from his throat. There's nothing funny about any of this, and that's probably why he's laughing so damned hard, laughing so _loud_ and _crazy_ and he can't stand to _hear himself_, so he buries his face into Peter's shoulder as his body shakes and Peter, still quiet and now terrifyingly distant, just not there anymore, even scarier than his laughter is Peter's silence, and Peter touches his hair lightly with a hand in a move that's probably an absent sort of comfort but it isn't Peter touching him, it's an emptiness touching him and it makes him laugh harder until he can't _breathe_.

---

There's anger and hurt and betrayal, but they're too far away right now for Peter to comprehend, but it reminds him of how he feels in the split second just after he's put his costume on and just before he pulls on the mask, and he's only vaguely aware that he just can't deal with this anymore, can't _do_ this, but he knows that he has to and that's his Shakespearean Tragedy right there.

And Harry's laughing hysterically into his shoulder. Laughing, and the thought seems alien and odd to Peter right now, but he knows that Harry is anything but happy, because there are tears running down his shoulder and soaking into the pillow.

And Peter doesn't think.

---

It's hard for Harry to breathe still, but he thinks it's more because of the tears than anything else, because he's been jolted back into sanity, and it's painful and frightening and all he wants is to slip back into insanity, and that sounds so wrong, but he just doesn't want to deal with this.

With the fact that he's just destroyed his best friend.

No, no. Peter's stronger than that. He'll be—

Not okay. This is not okay, and Peter can't be okay, and oh _god_, asking himself what he's done is redundant because he knows exactly what he's done and it's horrible and despicable and sick—

—and he's wanted it for so damned long, and a choked noise escapes his throat, and Peter's finger tighten painfully in his hair, and it reminds him that the drug should have worn off mostly by now, and if Peter kills him now Harry won't hate him for it.

Harry wants to speak. Wants to say something, anything, but all he can do is let his weight rest on Peter's body and gasp and hyperventilate and silently plead with Peter for a kind of forgiveness he almost doesn't want.

Because if Peter forgives him, he'll do it again. And again. And so long as Peter forgives him for it, he'll do it _again_.

And he knows Peter will find some way to at least fake forgiveness.

And he can't find the strength in himself to refuse it.

---

There is Harry's weight on his chest, but it's nothing, and it doesn't even inhibit his breathing. He's not thinking. He's not thinking.

Harry's breathing is harsh and frantic and erratic, and Peter's hand tightens convulsively, because Harry's breathing was like that less than an hour ago, and he doesn't need to think to know what had happened then.

And he wants to hate Harry, but he can't.

Because hatred is so painful, hatred ate up his love for his uncle and turned it into something twisted and sick and vengeful, and he doesn't want to hate Harry because it'll turn this into something, turn Peter into someone he won't recognize and doesn't want to be.

So he doesn't hate. He breathes, he survives, he goes on.

He's always gone on.

---

Harry presses his mouth to the side of Peter's neck, not a kiss but a muffling of everything that wants to escape his throat and his mind and his heart.

He wants to stay, and he wants to run as far from here as he can, and for a second he's trapped directly in the middle, clinging to Peter desperately as if he's as lost as he's made Peter feel.

And then he shifts, and for the first time Peter makes a noise, and it's a sharp intake of breath that sounds like it's come from a dying animal, and maybe it has.

But Peter's dying isn't done yet, and it won't be for a long, long time. And Harry knows it.

And it gives him some comfort, somewhere inside of him that still cares about Peter instead of pathetic mockeries of love, it comforts him in some sick way that he hasn't killed Peter.

Not yet.

---

Peter feels Harry shift, and roll over and sit up, freeing Peter from an oppressive force that wasn't his body alone.

He's breathing. Peter is breathing, and that's good and that's okay, and he can deal with breathing. He's alive, and that's a bit harder to handle but he figures in a little while, living will be okay too.

"You want some coffee?" Harry isn't looking at him, isn't looking at him and he can hear how lost and confused and even _afraid_ Harry is.

Peter hasn't wanted to cry in a long while. He's cried, sure, but he's never _wanted_ to cry quite the way he does now. Hasn't wanted to cry and scream and rave and destroy the city the way he knows he's capable of.

"Yeah," he says, and his voice is horribly rough and abused and strained. "Yeah. That'd be nice."


	2. All the King's Men

**Note to Readers:** I'm going to be on vacation for two weeks without access to a computer, so the third part won't be up 'till about July 26th.

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_Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,_  
_Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;_  
_All the King's horses and all the King's men,_  
_Couldn't put Humpty together again._

  
**All the King's Men**

_Nothing is perfect to begin with. So why does it hurt so much to break?_

by Alena

July 9th, 2004

Peter has dealt with scrapes and cuts and bruises, and things physically much worse than this kind of abuse, but even as he knows that his body is already healing itself with no speed any other human could match, it still burns his soul.

He turns up the water until it's scalding hot and there's steam wafting off of his body, but he still doesn't feel clean, and he thinks that maybe he never will. Because he's grown up with Harry, he's trusted Harry and he maybe sort of still does even though he doesn't, and Harry is still one of the first people he'd go to if he ever needed help, because some part of him still firmly believes that no matter what Harry may say or do, he would never really hurt Peter.

And that just makes everything so much worse.

---

The water for the coffee boils eight times before Harry finally hears the shower turn off, and the quick, quiet movements of Peter on the floor above his head. There are six bathrooms in his family's mansion, and Peter knows the house like the back of his hand, and Peter purposefully chose the one that was furthest away from the kitchen, and therefore, Harry.

He knows, somehow, that he's numb and he's pushing everything away and it's going to hit him like a train wreck when his mental walls finally bend under the pressure. But for now, he pours the coffee into two mugs, and one of the mugs is Peter's favourite, and he still remembers that Peter likes a lot of sugar in his coffee because he's always had a sweet tooth.

And when Harry's reaching for the sugar, he smashes a glass in the process, but leaves the shards on the floor because it's just one more thing that he can't fix.

So Harry ladles in three spoonfuls, and sets the mugs on the large dinner table, and tries to pretend that he didn't purposefully smash the glass Peter had drank from earlier.

---

Harry had dumped some of his own clothes just inside the bathroom door, but Peter puts his own clothes back on, because the whole house smells like Harry, like some kind of monster under his bed that he just can't get away from because he's too scared to move or even turn on the light.

The clothes smell like Harry, too, and Peter doesn't want to smell like him, because that would feel like a declaration of ownership and Peter doesn't want to feel like he deserves to be here right now.

So he leaves Harry's clothes on the floor, and gives his hair one less towel dry, and goes downstairs.

It feels like descending into hell, except that Peter thinks that Satan pities him right now.

---

It had never occurred to Harry that Peter might just leave – god knew he was more than capable of it – but now that he realizes that it's possible, he also realizes that it isn't, because Peter doesn't run away and Peter doesn't hide, not the way Harry wishes he could, so he sits down at the table (in his father's place) and his body tries to convince his mind that he does want to continue breathing.

He knows he's hurt Peter, and that thought seems so small and insignificant compared to the intensity of the damage he's done. But he still remembers Peter's body under his, hot and pliant and oh-so-good, and Harry bites his lip and wants to beat away the memory that is savagely beautiful, but he can't, because he did it and it's done and nothing in the world could ever, ever change that.

And sanity reels when he realizes that he wouldn't want anything to.

---

Peter trots down the stairs the way he's done countless times before, and every jolt of every step hurts and burns, but he grits his teeth and doesn't make a noise. The kitchen is through another two hallways, and he manages to make it there without thinking too much about what's waiting for him there, because if he thinks too much about it then he'll run and run and if he does he'll never be able to face this.

Pull out a chair. Sit down. Look at Harry. Easy, simple commands that make him clumsy and weak and only his reflexes keep him from tumbling out of the chair and onto the floor when he takes a seat.

And then he looks down at his coffee, and he can smell that it's just the way he likes it, and the silence is choking him.

He thinks that maybe if he hadn't ignored the way his spider-senses were tingling before, if he hadn't trusted Harry more than himself he would never have had that drink, but Peter's not naive enough to blame himself for what happened, but on the other hand he's not cruel enough to blame Harry.

He wants so badly to believe that there's no one to blame.

---

"You still like lots of sugar, right?" Harry blurts out suddenly, and the repercussion is like a gunshot, because it shatters the silence and Peter's body goes tense like he's about to jump out the window.

"Yeah," Peter says, and he sounds like he's just run a marathon screaming the whole way. "Yeah, it's… okay, Harry," and the way Peter says his name is soothing, and gentle, and they both know that it's not the coffee Peter is talking about.

But Harry can go with it.

"I can change it," Harry says, his own voice desperate and frantic and almost angry, because he should be the one soothing Peter, not the other way around, but that's wrong too because he shouldn't be anywhere _near_ Peter.

"No, you can't," Peter replies, and his voice _shakes_ for a split second, and Harry wants to throw his mug at him except that he knows Peter would _let_ it hit him, because he'd trust Harry not to throw it in the first place.

_Please, please, can we talk about the coffee._  
  
"I could," Harry says, and his voice is as clumsy as his words, "I could, Peter, I could change it if it's not—"

"Not _what_?" Peter interrupts sharply and suddenly, but he doesn't sound angry. Just… sad and despairing and more lost than when Harry had let him cry on his shoulder for his Uncle Ben, years ago.

"Not okay," and Harry's voice is a whisper, and he rubs at his eyes in an attempt to destroy tears that aren't going to happen.

Peter takes a sip of the coffee. Then a long drink. And then an ironic smile. "Really, Harry. The coffee's okay."

Harry just looks at him, and he knows Peter so damned well, so well that in almost any situation he could say exactly what he'd do.

But not _this_ situation, because this is something he's never had to think about because it never should have happened.

But he supposes that he always knew it would.

But he wants to believe that Peter is going to be all right, that he _can_ be all right, because if Peter can come out of this okay then maybe he can, too.

---

Peter thinks it's an paradoxical thing, but a strangely fitting thing, that the sun is only setting now. Maybe some unimaginative person would call it poetic irony.

But Peter, Peter just finds it funny.

He finds this whole situation funny, so funny that a laugh rises in his throat, and it comes out quiet and sounding more like a sob than it has a right to, and all he wants to do is crawl into his bed—in his _old_ bedroom, at Aunt May's—and sleep until his body heals and his mind heals and he can get through this.

But the sky is getting dark. And the people who thrive in it are coming out.

And he has to go soon, and he has to be someone who can deal with pain and rape and murder and hatred and violence, be someone who lives in it every night but isn't touched by any of it, because he's faceless and nameless in every way that counts.

And he's never wanted to be that someone more than he does now.

So he stands up, and Harry says softly, "You didn't finish your coffee."

And he can't help but reply, "It's not as okay as I thought it was."

---

Harry knows why Peter is leaving him, and he knows that Peter can't really stay, doesn't _want_ to stay. But some selfish part of him says that the city was fine before Spiderman appeared, and it'll survive one night, just _one night_ without him. And that same part says that if he asks Peter to stay, he will. He stands, and follows Peter down the hallway.

"I _want_ to change it, Peter."

Peter flinches visibly at the sound of his name, and Harry knows that he said it like it was a lifeline. Maybe it is.

"You can't."

"I want to _fix_ it."

"_You_ can't, Harry, you _can't_. Please—"

This is so selfish, this is so selfish, but he's always been and what makes him think that he can dramatically shift his character because of one event? "Stay."

"No." But Peter isn't moving anymore, and Harry moves closer, and knows he shouldn't touch him but puts a hand on his shoulder anyway.

"Stay with me."

"I already did."

That hurts. So Harry steps around so that they're face to face, and his hands are on Peter's shoulders, and he knows that Peter could break both his arms if he wanted to, but Peter _doesn't_ want to. And Harry knows it. Because Peter is young and guileless in a way Harry barely remembers, and he knows that Peter could hurt almost anyone except for him.

And he wishes he could say the same.

"Harry—"

_Shut up,_ Harry thinks desperately, and kissing him has the same effect that the words would have had, only words wouldn't have earned him a bitten lip, a bruised back, and a dent in the wall.

"Ow, Peter," Harry mumbles, straightening with a wince.

"_Ow_, Harry," Peter replies sardonically, but his eyes are wild and his hands are clenched into fists. But he hasn't run. Not yet. And Harry knows how to make him stay, and this time it won't take drugs or tricks or anything but words and promises that Peter knows to be empty, but Peter will want to fill them, and so he'll stay.

And Harry wishes he didn't know how to use people this way. But wishes never got anyone anything, so Harry wishes because he knows he doesn't have to worry about them coming true.

"I love you."

"Harry, don't you _dare_—" For the first time, there's emotion in Peter's voice, and it's something like anger, only more explosive and dangerous, but not to Harry, not the way anger _would_ have been.  
  
"I love you," Harry repeats, and for a second he's terrified that it might be true.

He moves closer again, and Peter is backing up even though Peter could throw him through a brick wall without breaking a sweat, because Harry has more power here, and his father taught him how to flaunt such power without making it overly obvious.

His _father_ taught him, and that makes him stop and stare at Peter and want to take everything back, and this time he really _does_ want to destroy the memory.

If only so he'll feel just as guilty next time.

It takes him a second to realize that not only has Peter touched the wall, he's also crawled a bit up it.

"Peter—"  
  
"Harry, I have to _go_." Peter starts to move up the wall faster, but Harry reaches up and wraps his fingers around Peter's wrist, and feels him tense so hard that his left foot slips from the wall for a split second.

"No, you don't," and Harry jerks Peter's arm, and Peter is strong enough to resist that, and he does, but the only thing holding him to the wall is the sticky pads on his fingers and he manages to stick only enough so that he slides back down to the floor instead of tumbling.

"Harry, _let go_ of me."

"There's no Doc Ock. There's no"—Harry swallows—"there's no Green Goblin tonight. You can stay."

"What makes you think I _want_ to?"

"You don't," Harry says simply, but doesn't let go of his arm. And Peter doesn't move.

And then the sirens sound, and Harry feels Peter jerk out of his grip.

"Peter—"

There's a flash of white-hot pain, and suddenly he's lying on the floor, dazed.

Harry sits up, and puts a hand to his mouth, still shocked, but gratified to find that he's not missing any teeth – Peter didn't hit him overly hard. And when he looks up, Peter is standing there, frozen and looking like a deer caught in headlights, and then Harry blinks, and Peter is gone, all caution thrown to the wind.

The curtains blow dramatically in the breeze, and Harry wants to start laughing hysterically again, but goes to find the scotch instead.


	3. Go Down Knowing

OMG, I LIVE. Okay, so sorry for the long wait, but this just _wouldn't_ come to me until now. This is the last part in the trilogy, so I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

**Go Down Knowing**

_Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed._

by Alena

October 24th, 2004

* * *

Spiderman has been patrolling the city for at least nine hours now, the way he does every night, even though it's technically Sunday morning right now, and in about two hours the religious will get up to get ready for church.

It makes him want to laugh, compared to where he's headed. A little piece of heaven for them, and a little piece of hell for him. He supposes it's something like the cosmic balance of the universe, only it really sucks.

And he really wishes that Asian lady would lose her instrument, or have it stolen, or something. That's one crime he won't be interfering with.

He wonders if _this_ is a crime. Well, _Peter_ wonders if this is a crime, because even though the mask is still on, he can feel the change, because he's not straining his ears and his senses for trouble, and he's not thinking up new snippy comments to make, and he's not completely enjoying swinging across town right now.

Maybe it's because he ends up in Norman's—Harry's—study. The window is open, and it occurs to him that maybe Harry was waiting for him—or maybe for Spiderman—and both ideas don't really bode well for either his sanity or his welfare, but Peter's pretty used to that, so it doesn't bother him probably as much as it should.

---

Harry doesn't so much hear Peter's arrival as sense it, as _know_ it, even through the haze of alcohol, and vaguely he manages to make himself wonder slightly as to why the clock says six am when he could have sworn it was four.

He turns to look at Peter just as he takes off the mask, stumbling forward to him and glaring, because how _dare_ he show up while wearing that suit, how _dare_—

"Harry, you're _drunk_," and Peter says it with a wrinkle of his nose that just _infuriates_ Harry, and drives him to grab Peter's arm and _jerk _him forward, and the knowledge that the only reason he could do that is because Peter _let_ him do it makes his mouth twist into a snarl.

"No _fucking_ shit, Peter," he hisses, with all the venom of a king cobra, "You're _brilliant. _No fucking wonder dad favoured you so much."

"Harry, this isn't about—"

"It's _always_ been about him, Peter, him and his goddamn work, him and his goddamn favouritism, him and his goddamn insanity, him and his goddamned _obsession with Spiderman_, him inside my _head_."

"_Harry_—" and Peter sounds so alarmed, so _shocked_, and it gives Harry the opportunity to yank him forward and crush their mouths together, clumsy and harsh, and his fingers run across the smooth material of the Spiderman uniform, and it's fucking _wrong_, but Harry feels a savage kind of ecstasy at the fact that Peter didn't _let_ him do this, Harry _took_ it.

---

Harry tastes like booze and smells like rage and just _feels_ like insanity, and the combination is enough to make Peter gag and shove Harry away, and wish he could get rid of the smirk on Harry's face just as easily.

"Jesus, Harry, I came here to _apologize_ for hitting you—"

"Oh, is _that_ all?"

Peter is taken aback by the sudden calm, amiable nature in Harry. His eyes narrow suspiciously, and he wonders if this is another trick, because his senses are acting up again, but they're not telling him about physical danger. They're warning him of—

"Because if that's all, Peter"—Harry swirls the contents of the shot glass, then throws it at the wall, his face twisting horribly—"_Then you're not fucking sorry for the right goddamned thing!_"

Peter tries to ignore the twist of pain in his chest, in his memory, and lashes out because that's so much easier to deal with.

"Harry, your father was a _raving lunatic_."

"He was a great man," Harry snarls, "and I'll be lucky if I'm half the man he was."

And Peter opens his mouth to say something, but he feels choked and strangled and why can't he _breathe…_? and all he can do is remember that rooftop, and the sewers, and that awful gurgling noise Norman made when he forced out his last words, just another promise that Peter couldn't keep, and he's lost so many people already, and Harry's slipping from his fingers but he thinks that maybe if they just _try _he can hang on, and please, Harry, _please_…

"What do you _want_ from me, Harry?" Peter asks helplessly, spreading his gloved hands. And tries not to shiver when Harry's expression twists into something that might have been a smile if there'd been anything good in it.

---

Peter slept on this bed, many times. Slept here and _wanted_ to be here, and he can't _remember_ why he would have wanted to, except that his brain dredges up a word that vaguely resembles 'friendship' and he wonders where that came from.

Peter doesn't want to think of this as _fucking_, but that's what it is, and that's what Harry's doing to him, that's what Peter's _letting_ him do, because he owes Harry so much, and even though that doesn't mean he _deserves_ this—deserves to be _fucked_—it means that he can't fight back because he's been fighting Harry as Spiderman for far too long, and it doesn't seem fair to fight him as Peter Parker.

Not that _this_ is fair.

But it's Spiderman's job to make things fair, and Peter and Harry are the only people he can't seem to save.

So it's not fair.

And Peter can live with that.

---

Harry wants to cover every inch of Peter and _hurt_ him, and he doesn't want to even _touch_ him, because he knows that he can only because Peter's given up on fighting him. And the thing is, so long as Peter was fighting him, it justified this somehow, made it better. But when Peter's not fighting…

Peter has always known how to hurt him the worst, even if he doesn't mean it. But this time, Harry thinks he does. Because this time, Peter isn't silent.

This time, Peter _screams_.

---

"You used to be so good," Peter whispers, whispers because his throat is too sore to do anything else, and he doesn't think he can stand to hear his own voice anyway, and Harry closes his eyes tightly and buries his face in the pillow and howls like something gone mad with pain, and Peter wishes that there was someone left to cry for whatever remains of his best friend's soul.

Because he wasted his tears on his own.

---

"I think I might've loved you," Harry says, and his voice is strained and broken and more than a little insane and terrible to listen to. "I think. Once. Maybe."

_Peter_ thinks that as long as he _doesn't_ think, that'll be perfect, because he doesn't want to anyway. He doesn't know what he expected, he doesn't know what he wanted, he doesn't even know if he wanted anything at all. But he's gotten _something_, and even though it's twisted and sick and about six thousand miles from sane, it's still…

"Good enough."


End file.
